


caught beneath the landslide

by jeesechurger



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Ambiguity, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Based on an Oasis Song, Beach House, Character Death, Depersonalization, Disassociation, Drug Use, M/M, Mental Instability, Mentioned Kim Seungmin, Please Don't Hate Me, Sea, Smoking, there's a dead kitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28774818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeesechurger/pseuds/jeesechurger
Summary: Minho liked the sea, Jeongin loved Minho.Nothing to worry about.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Yang Jeongin | I.N, Lee Minho | Lee Know/Yang Jeongin | I.N
Comments: 19
Kudos: 35
Collections: Be Kind: Rewind! | SKZ 90s Fic Fest





	caught beneath the landslide

**Author's Note:**

> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI-5uv4wryI) is my prompt song! 
> 
> before we start, this **fiction** takes place in a disturbing, messed up, dazed mind of a college student, who loses his lover and disassociates a lot (i'm sorry Jeongin, love you sm), so **PLEASE MIND THE TAGS!!**
> 
> **p.s.** it is not important for the fic (so you can skip here) but i couldn't stop thinking about Hyunjin's backstory as Jeongin and Minho's mutual friend so i'll give you that beforehand: Hyunjin's parents were divorced when he was little and his mom likes to run away from her responsibilities as a businesswoman, a mom, and a divorcee to the beach house once her parents owned. Sometimes Hyunjin likes to invite his friends to there and forget about all, adopting his mother's way of coping with a twist.

Minho liked the sea. He liked the water brushing his bare ankles, tickling down his tummy if he dared to move a few steps further. He liked it better when he could wrap his legs and arms around Jeongin, his boyfriend offering himself as the lifesaver.

"It's better when I don't feel whatever is down there," he explained once. The older was somewhat stubborn to admit that he didn't know how to swim, Jeongin did not mind whatever.

"As long as you're here," Jeongin replied at that time and got a firm hit on the side in return for his ‘cheesiness’. The blush spreading Minho's face warmed his heart, although when teased, Minho swore it was the sun.

So, the sun kissed a floating Jeongin in the middle of the sea without Minho, and Jeongin kissed every bit of Minho under the sun.

Minho had the strings of Jeongin's heart between his fingers. Together for longer than they could ever remember. He never tried to pull them enough to squeeze it, to bleed what he bore in there out. Jeongin wouldn't mind if he did.

Both were on the same path of ups and downs. Off-campus, little apartment flat with a mattress in the only separate room from the kitchen. It was still close enough to be in the classroom in fifteen minutes after a quick work of mouthwash. Both were used to the same noise coming down from the street, the background music shushing it while their bodies were tangling each other on the dirty and clean laundry, on the blankets, on the forgotten copies of someone's notes from the previous class.

The cigarette smell never justified the amount of fun they had during those kinds of days. Minho swore he was going to quit someday. 

A hoodie soaked in the smell of weed and hungry stains of red wine. Jeongin swore the red wine could accompany any dish, any playlist, any emotion, anything. 

The nightstand from across the street ("Wait," Minho stopped the younger before they entered the building after a quick lunch break from their sex marathon, "See that? Help me, we’re getting it upstairs.") next to the mattress serving for nothing but empty water bottles and Minho's glasses. Then, a kitten the older picked up from the campus to wind down when the small bags of green were out of reach.

It was as simple as this, their life depended only on due dates of the rent and group projects. Empty bottles. The last smile Minho sent every night before they fell asleep. Jeongin’s toothbrush hung down from the side of his mouth. And the cold never bothered them when the heating was off. They were happy for stashed food in the fridge, and leftover cake with only the bottom bracket of a birthday candle dug into it, anyway.

And Minho preferred summer. Nothing against Jeongin's birthday in February. He just liked the sea. After all, February was not suited enough for a trip to the beach.

So, the kitten died, Minho cried, and August came.

It was a regular weekly call in the middle of the day. Hyunjin was eagerly chiming on the line inviting for more than only a few drinks and was already beyond the clouds. Jeongin shrugged at his boyfriend, who had his glasses down his nose, bedhead flopping behind while the eagerness in Hyunjin's tone got him more excited than his regular self. 

"What do you think?" he asked hushedly as if Jeongin would not stuff the papers and the bright yellow marker back into his backpack with a halfway stuck zipper. 

He shrugged again. Minho liked the sea, so Jeongin liked driving to the beach.

Minho also liked to mess with Jeongin; exhaling all the smoke he just filled his lungs with, spraying it through his lips onto the younger’s flushed face. Then he watched him squirm, even though he was way too gone than Minho every time. 

"Do you love me?" he asked so regularly, now a fresh puff circulating his lips.

"I love you."

Minho smiled, dusky compared to the summer sun he wished to be under after the longest winter. Jeongin sat on the lawn chair, head far too gone to the back. Minho leaned down to kiss his boyfriend quickly, Jeongin adored the way his eyes had sparkles before the kiss left the odd taste of everything consumed. 

Minho liked to dance at the beach, on the warm sand, under the sunset. He pushed the sand around to feel them in between his toes. Kicked some on his way to Jeongin, so the younger would shift his attention to him from the last clouds that could be seen before they were replaced by the stars.

"I will swim," he declared, the words left his mouth confidently, more confident than the other day he bragged about how he was the best at baking edibles then burned a tray of muffins.

A mind was too lazy to comprehend, so Jeongin nodded once.

A wireless speaker was too close and too loud to his taste, breaking through his train of thought. The thoughts could not be explained even if he had his crumpled notebook and favorite pen with him. A few of his friends were laughing at an inside joke he could not grasp at the moment. He wanted all to be gone. 

_Where were you while we were getting high?_

He wanted to voice out something stuck on his mind, too. His mouth was opened twice and closed once.

_Pause._

The voices were dying away as Jeongin watched a cloud looking like the muffins from last week. His neck was still extended down from the painful top rail of the folding chair. The kiss, he tasted it again quickly wetting his desert alike lips, dried and glued on them. It tasted like the one muffin that was not burned like the others. It tasted like the sea, too.

And Minho liked the sea.

And Jeongin loved Minho.

Nothing to worry about.

_Resume._

The eyes followed a path in the sand, which blended with every footprint that faded on it. The wind, which was caused by the earth's rotation, was a bit faster that day (deep inside, maybe not so unrealistically, Jeongin felt the rotation as his stomach churned upset). The eyes were softer with loosened eyebrows as the sun went down and down. Its merciful greatness let the darkness cover their flaws and sins.

Somebody screamed.

The ear-splitting laughs were cut off. Only the messy playlist of someone that had no favorite genre was continuing.

Glancing up to the dynamic waves, odd. Nobody was moving forward or backing up. The smoke, and whatever they took back in the house, confused their system; the input that was selected neatly from the reality bites could not be perceived. Only the fear, the neurons were aware of.

Someone ran to the pier.

Jeongin felt shrinking in his seat, he felt himself crouching down. The last stray chips in the bag that had been already mixed with the digestive juice lurked on his throat, close to the tip of his tongue. He fought against it. 

The goosebumps appeared on his left side as he felt the urge to look up again. Counted himself 1, 2, 3... He watched salty water splashing, a falling star trapped in the thin line of what is called horizon. 

Next, the night unraveled their remaining humanity.

So, the sky died, Hyunjin cried, and August never left.

_Rewind._

Minho liked the sea.

☼ 

Collapsing down to the floor. Hands everywhere, hands up to his head, hands holding him in the spot, hands wrinkling his already wrinkled t-shirt with all those stains that were dipped into the cotton temporarily last night. 

A nose nuzzling his neck, right below his left ear, almost touching the hair. 

"You smell like the sea," a mouth replaced and played as in the way the nose was nudging before. "Beautiful."

Jeongin giggled, sad, sad in his head. 

_The sea, huh?_

The guy on top of him didn’t even realize how sad. 

The guy didn’t have a name. Just someone from the group, a new face that he did not have to explain the situation over again. Maybe he knew what happened, maybe he didn’t. But, really, neither did mind. One less person meant one more person. 

The mouth tailed the same path the fingertips danced on. The neck of his shirt down, collarbones were exposed. The knuckles that were knitted to the same fingertips caressed everywhere. The mouth was just a bystander, and also their partner in crime. It left soft red marks and wet circles of kisses. 

"Beautiful," the guy panted out once again when Jeongin’s hand ghosted over his crotch. An outsider wouldn’t be able to figure out if the reason was the touch or the view of Jeongin’s red poking gaze, or his now paling sunkissed skin, or the smoke, or the thud on the door, or the sound of a toilet flushing, or someone slowly walking down the hall and tripping over on another, a poem of curses hanging in the air, or…

The sea. Calm yet burning. Mirroring the blue of the sky.

_It is you, you’re the sea._

Jeongin arched his back to be closer to the mouth, nibbling his chest, from here to there, from there to here, every bite going down to the point according to its own slow pace. He appreciated being appreciated, humming as an approval now and then. A single ray of sun sliding between the curtains and slow dancing in between the dark curls of the guy caught his attention more than the warmth tickling the bottom of his stomach. 

"Is that okay?" he breathed out calmly, fingers fidgeting on the buttons of his jeans, ready to pop them one by one.

The guy checked for the hesitation in his eyes, none. Jeongin nodded once.

A low moan left his semi-clothed chest, was already prepared at the back of his throat when the curls replaced where his jeans were. 

He knew he was the source of the noise yet he felt as if he left himself downstairs, tangled up with a total stranger who was someone’s something, who just tagged along for the ground green bits rolled with tobacco and another stranger’s spit. He felt as if the stranger was not the owner of the impatient hands around his waist, pushing the rough jeans that were hiding his slender legs only to the midway. 

Then suddenly he was aware he was the one that was rotating his own head slightly to the side so he could actually see the soft breeze sensing the room before he was even able to do the same. 

Then he was so jealous of the wind, flowing around freely in the present, making their hands tremble more than they should have been. 

He heard glass shattering, someone laughing, someone crying, someone won, someone lost, footsteps rushing to the direction his eyes longly sought. The guy was not even aware of what was happening outside of the champagne-colored walls. Jeongin figured he had never been that high before to even care about his surroundings, no attempt to even think present. 

He realized the guy must have a name.

"What’s your name?" Jeongin spoke for the first time after they burst into a random room of Hyunjin's mother’s hideout, after a lot of groping on the trash of a couch, and over sensation that fueled their veins demanding for more.

His grasp on everywhere stopped, he leaned on Jeongin’s thigh. Cracked a smile, as if his mouth was not making ungodly noises of sucking someone off a second ago. As if the same noises were not accompanying his foggy mind and hazed thoughts, all mixing and echoing in the barely furnished room.

Jeongin smiled back.

"Chan."

_How cool._

Then he absentmindedly continued to watch the curtains, the open balcony door. A full window one, a hole instead of a handle. Chan was around him again. Who knows when it was broken and when people stopped sparing another glance to consider fixing it anymore. Was it the guilt or disgust that made them not care about the hole in the door? Maybe they were used to the sight of something being broken so long right in front of their eyes. So, involuntarily yet blended perfectly in pleasure, Jeongin’s breath hitched.

Then Jeongin looked for the sea. He slipped two of his fingers between his lips to fetch the moans out, muffled. He knew the sea was between the leaves of a few trees brushing together occasionally like they were a couple of kittens grooming each other. He pulled on Chan’s strands with his free hand, curls hugging his long fingers. The sun was too lazy to warm anything but itself, at least it was a clear sky. Drools sliding down from the corner of his mouth tasted like summer.

"Up," a pair of overused plump lips whispered into the kiss back on his, shooing the fingers away.

Jeongin followed, half of his body rising from the floor. Dusty, but a rug protected him at least; he’d rather have his back on a mattress. He wouldn’t say anything opposing though. He wanted to be out, out of his shell, wanted his mind to be at the moment. His mind was never at the moment.

He felt the fabric was off and he shivered, it was...

"Cold?" 

_Yes, cold. Do you think he also felt cold, Chan?_

"It’s November, it must be."

_It was August, Chan, it’s not supposed to be._

"Wanna come to the bed with me?" 

Jeongin pushed his hair back with his softened fingertips, the spit was already dried. As a response, he got himself onto the feet, shaking the pants off on his way. He was awarded by a view of Chan and his muscular body as he took off whatever layers he was disguised under. He hugged his skinny one. 

The breeze was forgotten yet both shivered. So, he crawled on top of the bed, and Chan crawled on top of him.

A glimpse of the sea on the edge of his eye before he drowned into the lips that he got used to kissing already. 

_Missed you._

He thought, more so often. 

The ghost imprint of Minho’s touch hadn’t even left his hips, burning now with each stroke of Chan. He winced into the thick air between their lips as Chan was finally inside of him. Did not have enough time to figure if it was the haze of sex or the pain he bore. Mindlessly, he drank the pleasure out of Chan’s reddened skin. Trailed the same spots Chan made sure to feel on him. Mumbled the scripted words to encourage as the older bottomed out and loosened and repeated. 

Nevertheless, Jeongin was glad that Chan was taking it slow but strong. He was almost sure that if it was not the context it was, they could hit it off from the beginning and make use of whatever their relationship would lead.

He rolled them to be on top, to ride the madness drip out of them. Chan was rather surprised, covering it by chuckling and groaning softly. The new position made both enjoy the feel of colliding bodies better. 

Jeongin admired Chan’s curls on the bed, a bed without a pillow or proper sheets. Something was whispering to them that the bed was used before. The fallen out blond hair was telling more, reminding Jeongin of Hyunjin. How he cried. How he, himself, was not able to cry. Then Chan pulled him down to give him a proper kiss. 

"Are you close?" he asked, snaking a hand around him. 

Jeongin weakly moaned in response, teeth chattering between the words even though he felt his body was on fire. He rode the older, dropped his head into his neck. He felt so good. Maybe a bit more than that. He felt his stomach was upset, being stirred with guilt and pleasure. He felt so good that being trapped in four walls and the smell of the sea terrified him. Feeling good terrified him. The body of his lover, soulless, that he had refused to see terrified him.

_Why, why, why, why_

Before he could do anything, the sobs of his were out and clear.

"Stop," Chan squeezed on his hip bone, "Jeongin, stop," hard.

"I'm sorry," his voice grew muffled as his limbs went stone cold. Chan helped him to slip down and lie next to him. 

The embarrassment was overtaking as he curled into himself automatically and went nerveless on the sex stained bed. It felt colder with the free November breeze replacing the heat he was covered. He heard the other cursing under his breath, irregular and matching a few minutes earlier, and wrapped his arms around himself. 

Tears flowed.

Salty. 

_Pause._

Jeongin didn’t like that he had a life dependent on another. Worse, he was not aware of the days passing by. He could not understand how Minho lived, and, thus, died. When did they start? When did it end? Minho was a mystery all along. A mystery that he was not willing to seek the truth of it, since he was afraid of a life without a Minho, either. 

He loved Minho, for sure, just did not want to evolve into more of a thing. He had the thoughts of leaving here. He had some thoughts of ending it himself. A degree, he did not care. An apartment, he did not own. Frozen meals and broken heaters. Nothing was holding him down but Minho. 

Or maybe the numbness of getting used to a routine held him better. 

Jeongin was accused of not holding Minho back. It was a silent agreement. Even if everybody knew it could be anyone to do the same, they were quick to abandon him with the feelings of guilt - and so quick to wash away from their sins. 

It was bitter, the taste of pity in Hyunjin’s words on the line (“Where were you while we were getting high?”), inviting him back to the hideout after a few weeks of grief. Although he could not compare them with the nasty stares that others were not ashamed to shoot so often. He then dedicated himself to forget all on the burning tip of his blunt or the sleeping pill lolling on his tongue.

Others believed that summer had ended and there was a lot to witness other than the misery of a miserable boy. Blocking out the view of him was way easier. And they were meant to move on. Yet, neither Jeongin could get away from summer nor he had the power to stop the world from spinning around. So, he accepted the way he was going down. Drunk on how his life got the biggest turn to a strange roadway, with no ups. 

_Where were you while we were getting high?_

_Resume._

He blinked the newly formed tears away, suddenly fell back to his own body with an unfamiliar texture of cloth tingling his skin. Unexpectedly his whole existence trembled once and twice, till it got used to the spreading warmth of the blanket.

"I knew it, you know?" Chan mumbled, now pants and his loose neck sweatshirt on. His bony fingers massaged Jeongin’s cover free biceps. The meeting of their eyes was not awkward or passionate. It was casual. 

Chan found more words to convey when Jeongin rolled on his back to face him, casually. 

"I mean," he pinched the tip of his reddish ear before his eyes were tired of wandering around in the room and met Jeongin’s once again. 

"Seungmin mentioned a night didn’t end well, the loss of a friend, and a certain someone the group doesn’t like to hang out anymore," he continued. 

Jeongin exhaled a shaky useless breath through his mouth to lose the hoarseness in his voice, "Why are you here then?" 

The older looked at his pink features and last tears escaping from his unrealistic eyes that an anime character could have, fresh out of a cheap studio. He hesitated, yet pushed a few blue strands of Jeongin sticking his eyelashes. 

Smiled, a lot sober at that moment to look rather empathetic and broken, "Didn’t know it was you." 

"Must be disappointing," Jeongin flinched, not so willing to be touched anymore. He pulled himself up to sit, covered his chest with the old looking blanket. 

Chan didn’t reply but lent a dimpled smile to the younger. He passed through the balcony door, didn’t realize the absent handle, and leaned his waist on the railing. His hand rummaged the pockets of his jeans to fetch a pack of cigarettes.

Jeongin stumbled around, silently appreciating that Chan turned his back after lighting his poison stick and left him on his own. He started by finding his phone then proceeded to put on each of his clothes before moving on the next.

Fully clothed, he sensed the lingering feeling on his skin that was telling him to escape the room. Nothing left for him to continue that... whatever it was. His phone buzzed once in his pocket. Chan's broad shoulders moved with the stick going down and up again to his lips. Jeongin felt funny thinking about his lips. And champagne-colored walls only reminded him of the kitten Minho had brought to their apartment.

Jeongin had refused to see its little, soulless, body.

Hyunjin's laugh downstairs boomed behind his ears.

He kneaded his jeans to get rid of the clammy feeling in his palms. Fighting against rising anxiety and heading to the balcony, "Can I have one?"

"Of course," Chan didn't miss a beat.

Jeongin bit on the bud gently and let the brunette light it.

Only the smoke danced in the air. The comfort accompanying silence drove them closer under the old blanket, which was sweeping the floor hanging down their shoulders. Jeongin was starving. And the cigarettes were shared - one, two, three. Jeongin kissed Chan sober after his second one, wishing to taste Minho again. It tasted different. Minho liked the sea and hand-rolled cigarettes; Chan liked the dawn and to dream.

They watched others, friends or not, living in their little bubble. Seungmin shot a quick glance in their direction before running down the well-memorized path to the beach. They sat down on the rain stained floor. Chan was easy to talk to. Their knees brushed. Making out with him tasted like the first breeze of summer, leading to fall. They watched the sea. Jeongin thought about Seungmin. Chan didn't notice but the handle was broken.

"Why are you here then?" he asked with a chuckle.

Jeongin’s blue bangs fell on his lashes again, and he smiled, "He became the sea."

The afternoon sun looked a lot like Chan, Jeongin figured. His fingers pushing back the strands and drawing lines on his face were all warm in contrast to November. 

The light was flicked on, someone thought it was the bathroom. Chan played with his fingers. The light was switched off, that someone left the room hanging their head down. Chan didn't know most of the people in the group. 

They couldn't see each other well when the night replaced their concerns. Chan said he was waiting for the stars that were about to blink in the sky in a few minutes ("You never see them under the city lights"). The blanket fell from their shoulders. Faint noises of the sea and exchanged phone numbers. He held Chan's hand, warm. Chan intertwined their fingers. 

_Next track._

Minho was the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> it’d make me so happy to know your feelings and thoughts, so, pls don’t hesitate to leave a comment!! kudos also much appreciated, they keep me motivated to do more :,)
> 
> find me! [twt](https://twitter.com/MINLlXR) & [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/20000915)


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